China Brings Together Solar, Salt & Shrimp to Introduce One-of-a-Kind Power Station

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China has introduced the world’s Largest Salt-Light Solar Power Station, which brings together solar energy with salt production and shrimp farming. The solar plant in Tianjin, China, is constructed on a gigantic salt farm. The project employs double-sided solar panels (bifacial solar panels) to absorb sunlight above as well as the sunlight reflected by the saltwater below.

The project boasts a capacity of 1 GW and has the ability to power up 1.5 million homes. Sprawling to an area of 13 square kilometres, the power station is the largest of its type in the world, and has set up a large array of solar panels. The project has been established at Changlu Salt Fields- which is among China’s oldest coastal salt farms.

Interestingly, shrimp are also cultivated in the brine underneath. The solar panels can also prove to be a boon to shrimp farmers, since the shade they provide, cools the water below. Scientists state that lower temperatures can give an impetus to the yields of shrimp.

Project Chief, Yang Fan, termed the facility a “new composite industrial model of floating photovoltaic power generation, brine evaporation, and aquaculture”.

The Success Stories of Shrimp Production with Solar Power

This isn’t the first time that a solar project and shrimp cultivation have been combined together. A similar project has witnessed success in the city of Binzhou, Shandong province. Reports state that there was an increase in shrimp production after a solar project was built atop the farm. The increase in production can be attributed to the shade that the panels offered to the shrimp ponds. Consequently, the temperature of water slid between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius. The firm responsible for the project maintained that its installed capacity increased to over 200 GW because of the project.

Back home in India, in 2022, shrimp farmers in the rural pockets of Odisha also embraced the idea of solar energy to augment their business.

Several other countries such as Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia are tapping into the benefits of shrimp cultivation with solar generation.

Last year, Lightsource bp, the renewables and solar arm of Oil giant BP, has unveiled the company’s first-ever clean energy-fed aquaculture project, a 150 MW PV-powered fishery off Taiwan.